Acupuncture And Digestion: Why It Matters What Your Poop Looks Like
Unloose the Caboose, Drop a Deuce, Conduct an Aerial Strike on Porcelainistan, Baptize a Baby Ruth… When you have kids, poop is pretty much all you talk about until their bar mitzvahs. Poop jokes are always funny, even hilarious, at that age. But diarrhea and constipation aren’t so funny when they’re happening to you. This is a sign that your body isn’t digesting correctly. Acupuncture can help.
I talked about this in my Chengdu 2000 blog, but when I moved to China, I had a shower with a hole below it. The drain worked for both the shower and the toilet. You drop the soap, and it’s a goner. Before I walked into the shower/toilet/hole I put my soap on a rope around my wrist and then ventured in. Before my dad came to visit I knew I needed to get him a poop seat, or he might fall over and never get up.
I ventured to the senior citizen block (yes, that existed for walkers, wheelchairs) to buy my special poop stool. I would love to say I only bought it for my dad, but it was one of my American luxuries in Chengdu. I wasn’t that into squatting, and now I could read the Chengdu Times every day.
In Chinese Medicine, we pay a lot of attention to what goes in and out of the body. Bowels are extremely important as they tell us how your internal system is running. Gastrointestinal disorders are one of my focuses, and through the years I have found acupuncture and herbs are highly effective in treating imbalances in the digestive tract.
Lets Talk Poop!
Digestion in Chinese medicine is mostly focused on the spleen. The spleen is in charge of digestion of food once it is put in the stomach. A weak spleen means your bowels have unabsorbed food, and diarrhea is the result. People with weak spleens have chronic fatigue, brain fog and dizziness. They tend to have food allergies and weak immune systems. In TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine), digestion revolves around fire. So if your kidney yang is strong, then digestion is healthy. Unfortunately, consuming iced drinks, eating raw foods and having smoothies as meal replacement all extinguish digestive fire and slow down metabolism.
Frequency
Bowel movements 1-2 times a day is perfect. Less than that would be considered constipation. Constipation is when one’s peristalsis (intestinal motility) is not working optimally. In Chinese Medicine, we think it's often caused by heat, stagnation in the liver or qi deficiency. Liver controls the movement of qi, and when qi becomes deficient, the energy doesn’t push the bowels through the intestines.
Let’s Talk Color
The perfect bowel color is a nice shade of brown (think Twix/Kit Kat or Snickers). This color is caused by the combination of stomach bile and bilirubin. Dry, dark brown stool means excessive heat in the large intestine. White or clay-colored poop is a bile duct obstruction or caused by certain medications. Red-colored stool could mean blood in the digestive tract. Bright red usually means a hemorrhoid, and darker red is from deeper in the intestine.
Constipation
Infrequency of bowel movements is referred to as constipation. Usually, in Chinese Medicine, it relates to heat accumulation in the intestines and insufficient amounts of body fluids. When this occurs, peristalsis (movement of the intestines) is very slow, and the bowels get stuck in the intestines.
Diarrhea
Excessive bowel movements are usually a result of spleen qi deficiency. Spleen qi deficiency prevents our body from holding things in place. With Spleen qi deficiency, the bowels are loose, and the intestines are unable to hold the bowels in place causing frequent bowel movements. Think drinking too much alcohol, too many raw foods and stress.
I love to use moxibustion or a heat lamp directly on the abdomen to warm the stomach and spleen. Acupuncture and herbs are extremely effective at stopping diarrhea, strengthening digestion and decreasing any pain in the abdomen.
If you learn anything from this blog, next time you liquidate assets take a look, analyze and take in all the new information you learned. Your new knowledge will give you a better understanding of how your system is running. Don’t be shy. And, of course, report back to your acupuncturist.